Opponents of cutting defense spending often frame proposed cuts as a binary choice: either cut military spending, or keep the country safe. This is a false dichotomy—by encouraging the Department of Defense to make reforms that use tax dollars more efficiently, taxpayers can have their cake and eat it too. Limiting unnecessary spending would actually be beneficial to national security.
In a recently released report, the Institute for Spending Reform identified 84 reforms aimed at improving the efficiency of taxpayer money going to defense spending. The reforms totaled at least $143 billion in savings, and many more of the proposals did not have a definitive savings calculation—in other words, enacting all 84 proposals would likely save even more.
These are not proposals that would harm military readiness. Some of the proposals with the highest potential cost savings would simply make the military run more efficiently. For example, “sea swaps” ($100 billion in savings over 10 years) would fly new crew members out to navy ships instead of having them return to harbor for a new crew, nearly doubling a ship’s deployment period while keeping crew deployment lengths the same.
Another example of common-sense reform is curbing “Use It or Lose It” spending, where government agencies spend all their remaining funds at the end of a fiscal year rather than simply having the money returned to the Treasury, often on absurd items like cornhole sets. Agencies also fear having their budgets trimmed the next year if they appear not to need their full budget appropriation. The Institute for Spending Reform estimates that enacting policies to stop the practice of “Use It or Lose It” spending could save $7 billion or more annually.
The Institute for Spending Reform’s recommendations overlap a great deal with a report the National Taxpayers Union Foundation prepared last year in conjunction with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Despite being on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, NTUF and USPIRG were able to identify $78 billion in savings from ending wasteful or ineffective military programs. With bipartisan expert agreement that savings are attainable without endangering national security, why can’t politicians get on board?
Officials involved in national security operations have long warned that the mounting national debt represents a threat to the security of the country. As the national debt continues to increase as politicians refuse to address overspending in the short term, the likelihood of future austerity cuts to defense when the nation’s fiscal situation becomes untenable also increases.
Rising debt has consequences in the short term as well: the state of the national debt means that the threat of government shutdowns has been commonplace of late, forcing military officials to contend with unpredictable funding. Because the military relies on the federal government’s fiscal solvency for stability, overspending represents a threat to defense officials’ ability to do their jobs.
A great deal of work needs to be done to address the debt problem. Yet Congress should start by taking easy steps to reform military spending so money is used more efficiently. After all, wasteful spending does nothing but make our country less safe.
Andrew Wilford (@PolicyWilford) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate policy analyst at the National Taxpayers Union.
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